


The Good and The Silly

by Talvenhenki



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, The Agnebal we all want
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22653940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talvenhenki/pseuds/Talvenhenki
Summary: One-shot collection centered on Captain Cristóbal Rios and Doctor Agnes Jurati and their relationship. Holos and other characters are expected to make appearances as well
Relationships: Cristóbal Rios & Agnes Jurati
Comments: 40
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a silly little thing based on erdariel's headcanon that Rios falls asleep on odd places and doesn't enjoy being found sleeping. I added a little and so this was born :D

The world tilted, waking Cristóbal up. He had fallen asleep at the controls – again, much to his dismay. He felt himself slipping off the captain’s chair, and soon enough he crashed onto the floor. Cristóbal groaned as he got up to see what had caused his beloved _La Sirena_ to tilt like that. And there it was; the infuriating navigation hologram was at the pilot’s seat, steering the ship away from something they would have crashed into, had the hologram not activated on his own. Seemed like the holograms knew how to do their job sometimes.

“Good morning, captain!” the hologram said, greeting Cristóbal with a smile. “Sleep well?”

“Quiet, you”, Cristóbal snapped. He hated being seen sleeping, even by his holograms. “What was that?”

“I dodged a mid-sized asteroid, captain”, the ENH replied and mock-saluted. “Honestly, captain, you really ought to sleep more; it’s not healthy to stay awake as much as you do. You cannot keep living like this.”

“Shut up!” Cristóbal yelled and threw his book at the hologram. “You’re only a navigation hologram; don’t act like you know what’s good for me.”

“Um…am I interrupting something?”

Cristóbal turned around, ready to give the intruder a piece of his mind but the words died in his throat when his eyes locked with Doctor Agnes Jurati’s. She was looking at him somewhat timidly, seemingly unsure of what to say.

“And here you can see Captain Cristóbal Rios in his natural state of being!” the ENH said from behind Cristóbal, sounding like an excited Irish documentary presenter.

“Shut up”, Cristóbal muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Deactivate the ENH.”

Agnes let out a weird noise and Cristóbal looked up to see her _giggling_. For a moment, Cristóbal could only wonder how someone could look so beautiful laughing like that. Agnes’ nose was scrunched up, and her eyes were closed while she tried to hide her smile behind her hand. And that laugh! It warmed Cristóbal’s heart, feeling sweet like droplets of honey in his tea.

“I’m – I’m so sorry, Captain Rios”, Agnes managed between her giggles, “but you looked so silly with your hair messy like that and shirt all wrinkly! I’m sorry.” She giggled a little bit more. “I’ll stop laughing in a minute, I promise.”

Cristóbal wasn’t smiling, not exactly, but he didn’t look angry either. Agnes’ childlike joy was contagious and Cristóbal found himself letting out a small chuckle at the way Agnes’ shoulders shook with the force of her giggles.

The ship swayed again, and Agnes staggered, almost falling sideways. Cristóbal surged forwards just in time to catch her and help her stand up again. “Let’s get you on that chair before you fall down”, he said, and led Agnes onto the pilot’s seat that had been occupied by the ENH.

“There”, Cristóbal said as Agnes sat down on the chair. Cristóbal himself sat down on the small platform under the captain’s chair. “Are you feeling better now, Doctor Jurati?”

“Oh, please, call me Agnes”, Agnes said, blushing. She clearly wasn’t used to such attention. “I am good now. I’m sorry for laughing at you like that. It wasn’t very polite towards you, Captain Rios.”

“No offense taken”, Cristóbal replied, “and in that case you should call me Cristóbal. If we are to be on first-name terms, that is.”

“Oh, I’d like that”, Agnes said, smiling widely. Cristóbal thought that smile to be the brightest one he’d ever seen. Agnes Jurati was the most adorable human being Cristóbal had ever met. Less than a day on his ship and she’d already managed to break through some of his barriers.

She was a remarkable woman.

“What were you doing up so late?” Cristóbal asked. “Is everything alright?”

“I woke up when the ship dipped and wanted to investigate”, Agnes explained, blushing again. “Did something happen here?”

“Just an overly helpful hologram dodging an asteroid”, Cristóbal said, “without it we’d have gone boom.”

Agnes giggled again. Cristóbal found he really liked the sound.

“I should go off to sleep”, Agnes said and stood up. “You should sleep too.”

“I’ll go soon. Good night, Agnes.”

“Good night, Cristóbal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments fuel my soul!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not a happy one; Cris hates life and Agnes hates Cris' suffering

Agnes had always been smooth, never tripping on anything and always carrying herself with grace. (Well, gracefully enough to not make a fool of herself, at least.) Except that the moment she met Captain Cristóbal Rios, everything about Agnes changed. She became clumsy, she began stuttering around him, and oh God, she _blushed_ so easily.

It wasn’t her fault, though. Anyone would stutter seeing a man as beautiful (should she say handsome? She probably should say handsome) as Captain Rios, no, Cristóbal. She’d promised him she’d call him Cristóbal if he was to call her Agnes. Agnes smiled at the memory. Inside, Cristóbal was a kind man, even though he tried to seem cold and aloof.

As she was thinking her thoughts, she walked towards the bridge. Before she could get there, however, she tripped over something – no, some _one_. More specifically, Doctor Agnes Jurati tripped over Captain Cristóbal Rios, who was squatting on the floor, fixing something. Even more specifically, Agnes’ knee connected with Cristóbal’s right shoulder – the one that had been pierced by tritanium, which Agnes, unfortunately, didn’t know.

“ _Ay mierda_!” Cristóbal yelled, clutching his shoulder. He grimaced, breathing through his nose, as he turned to look at Agnes who was getting up.

“Are you alright, do – Agnes?” he asked, still trying to get used to Agnes’ first name. His face was pale – he was in pain, Agnes realised – and he was clutching his right shoulder tightly, so tightly, in fact, that Agnes could see blood on his fingers.

“You’re hurt!” Agnes exclaimed. “Take your shirt off!”

Cristóbal’s eyebrows shot up. Had he not looked so pained, he would have actually looked rather comical with his eyebrows high like that, but neither him nor Agnes realised it at that moment. Cristóbal tried to back away from Agnes but when it became apparent that she wouldn’t buckle, he took off his shirt, revealing the huge gash on his right shoulder. It was bleeding, again.

“Dear God”, Agnes breathed, hand flying over her mouth. “Activate the EMH.”

The timid hologram materialised next to Agnes, looking rather surprised. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked, even though he could fully well see the bloody gash on Cristóbal’s shoulder.

“I need a dermal regenerator”, Agnes whispered, holding out her hand. “I need to fix that.”

The EMH looked at Agnes and then at Cristóbal and then at Agnes again. He handed over the dermal regenerator to Agnes who grabbed Cristóbal’s arm so that he couldn’t run away before she could fix his shoulder. She didn’t say a word while she moved the dermal regenerator over Cristóbal’s wounded shoulder, fixing the gash. Cristóbal found he couldn’t say anything while Agnes worked with that concentrated expression on her pretty face.

“Done”, Agnes breathed, and handed the regenerator back to the EMH. He gave Cristóbal a smug smirk, to which Cristóbal replied with a glare.

“Deactivate the EMH”, Cristóbal muttered. He avoided Agnes’ eyes stubbornly, as if ashamed of being seen weak.

“Why do you do that to yourself?” Agnes asked softly, still not letting go of Cristóbal’s hand. “Why do you let yourself get hurt like that? I saw you this morning doing it too. Some coffee got spilled on your hand and you did nothing to it, even though the coffee had been steaming. Why do you hurt yourself so?”

Cristóbal was taken aback. He hadn’t realised that Agnes was so observant, considering how airheaded she had seemed before. Not only had she managed to force her way into his heart (a secret not even she knew) but she’d also noticed his way of punishing himself.

“I just don’t care”, Cristóbal said. And it was true, in a way. He didn’t care if he lived or died because he should have been in his captain’s place. It was the first officer’s job to _protect_ his captain, not let the captain die!

“Well, I care!” Agnes said, her eyes blazing with determination. “You are a kind person and I will not stand by and watch you hurting yourself. I don’t know what you think you did to deserve that, but I know you’re better than whatever you did. You deserve better than a lifetime of solitude and pain!”

Agnes was still holding Cristóbal’s hand, squeezing it with both of her hands, keeping it close to her heart. Her expression was determined. Cristóbal was sure she wouldn’t back down, although he didn’t know why he felt like that.

“You shouldn’t care.” Cristóbal squeezed Agnes’ hand. “The last one who cared ended up dying in a horrible way.” Cristóbal looked down, avoiding Agnes’ eyes. “It’ll all be easier for me if you don’t.”

“That’s so fucked up”, Agnes muttered. Cristóbal’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected Agnes to use such language. She was the image of a goody-two-shoes who would never break any rules – aside of being on a possibly illegal mission with Admiral Picard, but Cristóbal chose to ignore it – and who’d never curse. But there she was, frowning, with bad words on her tongue.

“Let’s make a deal”, she said, looking up at Cristóbal. “If you won’t care about yourself, I can care double. Everyone always says I care too much, anyway. What’s one more person’s share in that load? I can care double if you promise me you won’t shut me out. Please?”

Cristóbal was, once more, taken aback. Agnes’ honesty and her big bright eyes gave him no room to refuse, even though he wanted to. It was a leap of faith, entirely too long of a leap for Cristóbal, but he found he didn’t want to shatter Agnes’ hope either. Not completely, anyway.

“I can’t promise to shut you out”, Cristóbal said slowly, “but I can promise to care about you, in exchange. How does that sound?”

Agnes nodded, then blinked her eyes and then, both to Cristóbal and her surprise, hugged him. “That’s good”, she whispered, “that sounds good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments fuel my soul!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turns out Agnes has opinions about Cristóbal's book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to yell that no, pain doesn't define us as humans at Cris, so I wrote a thing.

“Why do you think pain defines us as human beings?”

Agnes had been thinking about Cristóbal’s book and it turned out that she had _opinions_ about it. Strong opinions, in fact. She disliked the idea of her humanity, of her _humanness_ being defined by something as ugly and unkind as pain and fear of death. She didn’t want to be in pain and she most definitely didn’t want her friends to be in pain. She wanted her friends to be happy and safe, and yes, the ragtag crew of _La Sirena_ were all her friends. She had adopted them all and they wouldn’t get rid of her, not without a fight.

Cristóbal looked surprised for a fleeting moment and then his face assumed the tired look Agnes had got to know so well for the past few days. There was a hint of sadness, a melancholy of a kind, in his eyes as he gazed at Agnes.

“It grounds us, and it reminds us how small we are”, Cristóbal explained, placing his book down, “because in the end, we are just dust specks in a vast universe. The pain helps us not to lose ourselves. With the pain, we can gain awareness of our true selves.”

Wow. Those were mighty words. Beautiful to Cristóbal, perhaps, but to Agnes they felt odd, aged. Gaining awareness of one’s true self through pain? Surely there were other ways to find one’s self.

Pain was…Agnes hated to see others in pain. Agnes hated the helplessness that she felt when she saw others’ pain, she hated the way she didn’t know how to ease the suffering. She hated how some people wanted to seem cool by being able to withstand pain because to Agnes it was nonsense; it wasn’t cool at all. It was just some idiots playing with fire.

“It makes no sense to me”, Agnes said, eyebrows furrowing. “To me it sounds like an excuse to not even try to be happy.”

Cristóbal looked taken aback, and for a moment, Agnes thought she could see infinite loneliness in Cristóbal’s beautiful eyes.

“Or maybe ‘happiness’ is just an excuse to not try to look for one’s true self.”

Oh, that sounded like Cristóbal was trying to pick a fight with her. Or maybe to make her shut up. Probably to make her shut up but Agnes Jurati didn’t shut up so easily. Cristóbal had no idea that he’d just pressed the wrong buttons and made Agnes ready to debate. The problem with people who liked paper books was that they liked debating and they tended to teach it to their offspring.

“I don’t believe that”, Agnes declared, “it makes no sense that happiness should be an excuse. Happiness is a feeling, just like pain, and that’s what makes us human. It’s the laughing, the fooling around, the _loving_ that makes us human. It’s the fact that we literally cannot exist without other human beings, without another’s touch or we will die that defines our humanness.”

Agnes crossed her arms, as if to dare Cristóbal to disagree. Which he did.

“Would you say that people who are depressed and lonely are less human, then?”

“Of course not”, Agnes said, “I think it simply means the person has gone too long without happiness shared with others. I think it’s the depression that shows that humans need the happiness to live. I think that it shows how we need the happiness because otherwise our brain will try to kill us slowly and that’s no way for a human to live. That’s why we have therapy.”

This time Cristóbal went silent for a moment. His eyes were half-lidded; Agnes noticed how good he looked even when thinking. Oh, that was so unfair. How did some people look so nice without even _trying_?

“Then…what if a person feels like they deserve happiness no longer?”

“Well, that’s just a pile of bullshit”, Agnes said, alarming Cristóbal with her choice of words. “Everyone deserves basic happiness, no matter what they personally think of themselves. I don’t give a damn what you’ve done, what you’ve gone through; everyone deserves basic happiness. And no ‘but’s; I will fight anyone, even you, who says that they’re the exception to the rule. No exceptions, nada. Basic happiness to everyone, period.”

Agnes was leaning on the control panel while Cristóbal sat on the captain’s chair. He had the physical higher ground, but Agnes had just gained the metaphorical. She believed in her words and Cristóbal couldn’t take it away from her, no way.

Cristóbal smiled, in the soft way he’d begun to smile to Agnes and Agnes alone. She liked it, the softness in his eyes, but she wouldn’t say anything about it until she’d be the winner of their little debate.

“You know, coming from you, I might even believe in that opinion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments spark joy!!


End file.
